What's Up?
"...through his sound you can tell his deep understanding of his people,their origins,the diaspora and the movement in-between all are equally considered in his thoughts ..."
—Nduduzo Makhathini
Life & Work
Bio:
Linda Sikhakhane is a South African born saxophonist, composer and arranger. He was born in Umlazi Township near Durban where his love for music was triggered at an early age. This saw him attending music classes at the age of 10 in Junior Primary and later took up jazz lessons under the tutelage of Dr Brian Thusi at the Siyakhula Music Center in his neighborhood . He obtained a Diploma in Jazz /Popular Music at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal under Prof Mageshen Naidoo in 2012.
Sikhakhane has played and recorded with respected South African and international artists such as Brian Thusi,Barney Rachabane, Feya Faku, Marcus Wyatt, Herbie Tsoaeli, Andile Yenana, Nduduzo Makhathini, Afrika Mkhize, Sibongile Khumalo, Gregory Potter,Reggie Workman and many more.Sikhakhane won the SAMRO Overseas Scholarship in 2016 and in 2017 released his debut album titled 'Two Sides, One Mirror' .
Linda re-located to New York in 2017 and enrolled at The New School University as a transfer student to complete his Bachelors degree in jazz, he is studying with the great Billy Harper, David Schnitter & Reggie Workman.
Episode 17 of our South African Jazz Showcase series features saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane and his Iladi Quartet, featuring Dalisu Ndlazi on bass, Tumi Mogorosi on drums and Jude Harpstar on harp. This is the ensemble's first date - the music and the exec...
Dizzy’s Club Presents
Linda Sikhakhane: An Open Dialogue
Linda Sikhakhane, tenor & soprano saxophones
Afrika Mkhize, piano
Jude Harpstar, harp
Benjamin Jephta, bass
Ayanda Sikade, drums
Ndabo Zulu, trumpet (special guest)
Saxophonist and composer Linda Sikhakhane at the 2020 Standard Bank Jazz Festival, explains how he is currently creating music that explores the revelations in the current world climate.
The canopy rises from Bahia to encircle the planet, but but the roots of the Matrix go back decades to Kingston, Jamaica...
I'm Sparrow. I used the contract above, Bob Marley's first (co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21, and this is a copy I made of Clement Dodd's original) to retrieve unpaid royalties from CBS Records. I retrieved money for Aretha Franklin, Gilberto Gil, Led Zeppelin, Barbra Streisand, Mongo Santamaria and many others. But what if Bob hadn't got out of Kingston, or Aretha out of Chicago? They would have been just as great but there would have been no way for the wider world to know. The world brims with brilliant artists without reach, including writers, filmmakers, painters... So in the Matrix, everybody can potentially be experienced from everywhere in the world. And the famous? Very few people (Bob and Michael Jackson aside) are famous everywhere, plus the famous like to recommend (connect to) too. The pathways are open. As they say in Bahia, "Laroyê!"
Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix. — Susan Rogers (Susan was personal recording engineer for Prince; she recorded "Purple Rain", "Around the World in a Day", "Parade", and "Sign o' the Times" and she is now director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory)
Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched! — Julian Lloyd Webber (Julian is the most highly renowned cellist in the United Kingdom; he is brother of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats...)
This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :))) — Clarice Assad (Clarice is a pianist and composer, with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world)
The Matrix uncoils from the Recôncavo of Bahia, Brazil, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history and from where some of the most physically and spiritually uplifting music ever made (samba and its precursor chula, per the Saturno Brothers below) evolved...
By the same mathematics positioning some 8 billion human beings within some 6 or so steps of each other, people in the Matrix tend to within close, accessible steps of everybody else inside the Matrix.
Brazil is not a European nation. It's not a North American nation. It's not an East Asian nation. It straddles — jungle and desert and dense urban centers — both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil's national music — the pandeiro — the hand drum in the opening scene above — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil's culturally fecund nordeste/northeast, where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa (Lagoon of the Canoe) and raised in Olho d'Águia (Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil's aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
SPARROW/PARDAL ROBERTS
SUSAN ROGERS
JULIAN LLOYD WEBBER
CLARICE ASSAD
ALICIA SVIGALS
KAMASI WASHINGTON